Problematic debt: Why 40% of workers can’t participate in a retirement plan

Getting employers more engaged with their retirement savings plan can be a tricky proposition, made more difficult by concerns with inflation and debt, according to experts in a recent panel discussion sponsored by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI).

EBRI’s recent “2023 Retirement Confidence Survey” report said that although a majority of both workers and retirees believe their retirement savings will be sufficient for their needs, levels of confidence slipped sharply in 2023 for both groups. The EBRI survey found that confidence in retirement savings had dropped nine percentage points for workers, and four percentage points for retirees.

“The big thing that we could see is that this year we had the largest one-year drop in confidence since 2008, which is the last time we had a really large decline in the economy,” said Craig Copeland, director of wealth benefits research at EBRI. “Inflation and cost of living has been top-of-mind for [worker] confidence and their overall feeling on what’s going on in the economy.”